Grasslands don't just provide stunning landscapes, they're also essential to life on Earth. Grasslands harbor thousands of species of plants and animals all over the world, from North America and South America to Africa, Australia, and Mongolia.  And, like forests, grasslands actually capture and store carbon and can help combat climate change. Yet across the globe, grasslands are the most altered and least conserved habitats.

While Argentina’s temperate grasslands cover an area of the South American continent almost as enormous as Alaska, only a small percentage are protected. The Conservancy will work with ranchers, government officials, landowners, and other organizations to preserve a swath of Argentine grasslands as large as Florida.

Grazing on grasslands

Brought to the Americas by European settlers, sheep have been ranched in Argentina since the late 19th century. Patagonian sheep are raised primarily for their wool and produce some of the finest Merino in the world—most of which is sold on international markets.

Often grazed year-round, however, and in flock sizes too large for their lands, sheep in southern Argentina are causing high levels of desertification in one of the world’s most threatened and least protected habitats: the temperate grasslands.

A flock of sheep can gobble up great expanses of native grasses, and in parts of southern Argentina, they’re clearing some serious vegetation:

• Sheep spend between 7 and 8 hours a day eating.
• Each sheep consumes between 2 and 4.5 pounds of vegetation a day.
• Besides vegetation loss, overgrazing by sheep causes loss of habitat for other animals and damages rivers and lakes by polluting them with runoff and silting from erosion.

Sustainable Levels of Sheep

When flock sizes, lands, and riparian areas are properly managed, however, ranchers, sheep, and native plants and animals can thrive together on the same vast swaths of grasslands.

Collaborating with other partners, the Conservancy will be providing the  tools, technology, and science to help sheep ranchers in Argentina:

• Use satellite technology and on-the-ground field work to map the vegetation and wildlife distribution on their lands;
• Identify priority areas for conservation, and find ways to protect those areas;
• Develop and implement grazing regimes—systems of grazing rotation that allow for the regeneration of native species—and other management practices favorable to the natural conditions and local flora and fauna found in temperate grasslands.

Find out what you can do to protect grasslands in Argentina and the rest of the world.

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Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Harold E. Malde (Steppe landscape, Argentina); Photo © Tim Davis/Corbis (sheep).